Top dog Sugita digs her way to freedom, Friday June 24, 2005 Japan Options

[ttenovy]

Sugita said herself that hers was a "commuter marriage," maintaining the old Japanese tradition of yobai, or crawling into somebody else's bed at night.


Kaoru Sugita shocked many in January by suddenly announcing that she'd tied the knot as she had carved a career out of symbolizing the growing number of unmarried single Japanese women.

Now, with rumors rife of a split, it looks as though the 40-year-old may have restored hope for the makeinu, the term that literally translates as "defeated dog," but is the name used to describe older women who shun marriage.

Sugita seemed happy enough a few months ago, according to Flash (7/5).

"This taxi drove up beside the apartment block and out jumped Sugita. She bounced along to the elevator and looked as happy as Larry," Flash hears from a resident of the same condo in which what was supposed to be the posh love-nest Sugita was sharing in Tokyo's Minato-ku with husband Junta Ayukawa.

Another resident adds: "I'd noticed she was getting home really late and then leaving by taxi really early in the morning. It was sort of like she came over to the apartment whenever she had time. I thought she was really making an effort to go and see him."

That Sugita wasn't living permanently with her hubby is no great secret. She'd even said herself that hers was a "commuter marriage" and also gone on record as saying she and Ayukawa maintained the old Japanese tradition of yobai, or crawling into somebody else's bed at night. However, she's also said in February that her work schedule was booked solid until the end of May, after which she planned to "devote everything to my husband."

But, over the past month, the number of people who've reported seeing Sugita roll up to the posh pad has suddenly declined, fuelling the rumors of a marital rift.

"All sorts of reasons are being given for what may have caused a split - a disagreement between Sugita's mother and Ayukawa; his family disapproving his choice of wife - there're loads of them. Sugita has apparently been telling her friends that she's a bit sick of her husband," an entertainment world insider tells Flash. "Ayukawa, though, is as smitten with Sugita as he ever has been as has continued clinging to her even after they parted ways."

Sugita and Ayukawa refuse to confirm whether the whispers are true. Ayukawa won't even acknowledge his own name when reporters tackle him. Sugita, meanwhile, is shacked up in a Chuo-ku apartment with her promise to "devote everything to my husband" turning out to be "devoting everything to myself," the pictorial weekly says. A nearby Chuo-ku denizen recalls a Sugita sighting.

"I've seen Sugita-san shopping around here a number of times recently, but she's always alone," the resident, a supermarket worker, says. "She came in to our store a couple of weeks ago and had a look around the fresh veggies section."

Has Sugita then returned to the makeinu lifestyle for which she made her name? Her representatives aren't available for calls, but her mom is quick to quash talk of wedlock woes.

"I haven't heard anything about a divorce," Sugita's mom tells Flash. "As far as I know, the two of them are getting on all right."



mdb.mainichi